INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL UNION
COMMISSION ON GENDER AND GEOGRAPHY
Newsletter 43November, 2009
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR
On 22-24 May 2009 approximately 50 delegates from 13 countries attended the IGU Gender and Geography Commission conference ‘Post-socialism, neo-liberalism - old and new gendered societies and policies’ in Szeged, Hungary and Timişoara, Romania. The conference, organized by Júdit Timár (Centre for Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and Sorina Voiculescu (West University of Timişoara), evaluated post-socialism and neo-liberalism from a feminist geographical perspective. We are indebted to the organisers for making this conference such a great success.
Recently Janet Townsend (University of Newcastle, UK) stepped down from the IGU Gender and Geography Commission Steering Committee. Janet’s work on NGOs, participatory research with poor women in low-income countries, poverty, power, and self-empowerment has made, and continues to make, a positive difference both within and outside the discipline of geography. We are grateful for the contribution Janet has made to our Commission over a long period. Janet’s resignation, however, has enabled us to welcome on board Claire Dwyer (University College London) whose expertise in gender, ethnicity and religion, particularly Islam, will be much appreciated.
This newsletter includes information on the IGU’s Regional Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, 12-16 July 2010. Tovi Fenster and Chen Misgav (TelAvivUniversity), and Orna Blumen (University of Haifa) are organizing a pre-conference meeting which will take place at Notre Dame de Sion Monastery in Ein Karem, Jerusalem on 8-10 July 2010. In addition, we are planning to have several sessions of our Commission at the main conference, some jointly with other Commissions. I would encourage people who are interested to submit abstracts for either, or both, of these meetings. The Commission on Gender and Geography is currently setting up a Student Paper Award on Gender and Geography and the inaugural award will be presented at this conference.
Also in 2010 the Commission is pleased to be able to support an international seminar on ‘Contextualising geographical approaches to studying gender in Asia’ to be held 3-5 March at the University of Delhi. The seminar is being organized by Anindita Datta (University of Dehli) and Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt (College of Asia and the Pacific, AustralianNationalUniversity). It will provide a forum for Asian geographers and others to critically examine the contexts that shape work on gender.
Another event on the 2010 calendar is the “Positioning geography” conference to be held 19-22January 2010 at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. The conference aims to provide an environment for geographers to share perspectives and expand understandings of education, learning, knowledge and geography. Our Commission is a partner in this conference. I will be hosting a city walk that includes seeing an exhibition titled 'Assume nothing: demystifying and celebrating gender diversity', paper sessions and a field trip to Rotorua focusing on tourism and gender issues. Abstracts for presentations, and expressions of interest for workshops and round tables are due 30 November 2009. For more information and registration details see
Finally, I would like to remind everyone that the IGU Commission on Gender and Geography has an excellent website edited byJoos Droogleever Fortuijn. The website contains a wealth of material on the Commission including an information pamphlet created by Elisabeth Bühler (University of Zurich) that can be downloaded and printed for distribution. It is excellent to keep getting the word out about the work we do.
Robyn Longhurst University of Waikato
Hamilton, New Zealand
NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
An independent Schumpeter research group hosted at the German
Institute for Childhood, Youth and Family (DJI) in Munich has been funded for the period 2009-2012 by the Volkswagen Foundation to conduct research on the time-space experiences of the rising incidence of multilocal families, separated by place and households. Major research questions take up the implications of divorce and marital separation, of employment in different locations, and long periods of absence. Directed by Michaela Schier, the multi- disciplinary project will bring together perspectives on space, place, and time on German families drawing on both quantitative and qualitative methods. For further information contact Dr. Schier () or Anna Proske ()
An important landmark for gender work in geogeaphy in Latin America is the recent publication of "Geografias Subversivas: Discursossobreespaço,gênero e sexualidades" (in Portuguese), Paraná: Todapalavra Editora,2009. (Subversive Geographies: discourse on space, gender and sexuality). Organized by Joseli Maria Silva, it is the first book on the feminist approach in geography to be published in Brazil. It aims to deconstruct the Brazilian geographical discourse that produced the invisibility of social groups and phenomena that were denied and dismissed by the prospect of colonial modernity. The book presents texts by various authors with distinct themes. The first three chapters deal with theoretical- methodological issues related to doing geographic feminism doing in Brazil. The following show researches of people connected to the Latin America Geography and Gender Studies network (Rede de Estudos de Geografia e Genero da América Latina - REGGAL). Issues such as the feminist perspective on Brazilian geography, single-parentfamilies and urban poverty, feminine juvenile sexual exploitation, prostitution, masculinities, adolescents in conflict with the law, as well as the relationship between female body and religion and domestic violence are presented in this book. The book can be purchased through the site :
Aparajita Chattopadhayay (International Institute for Population Studies, Mumbai, , India) has a new research project to examine development indicators to assess whether urban poor in India are doing better economically than their rural counterparts. The research will compare changes over time and examine disparities in health, mortality, education, and employment among poor women aged 15-40 years. between large cities, small, cities, towns, and villages in terms of selected household
An international colloquium, Genre et movement: Conflits, négociations etrecompositions/ Moving Gender: Conflicts, Negotiations and Redefinitions, an interdisciplinary discussion including geographers, was help at the University of Paris, Diderot, September 30-October 2, 2009. Seven thematic sections included: “Work, the economic sphere and labor markets; Family, solidarity, and inequalities; Intimacies and sexualities; Marginalities and transgressions; Social forms and spaces of violence; and Mobilities and circulations; and Citizenship, participation, and neoliberal politics.Further information is available at
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The IGU Commission on Political Geography meeting “Borderscapes II; Another Brick in the Wall,” held in Trapani (Italy), September 13-16, 2009, included a number of presentations focusing on or including gender themes in its material and symbolic forms. They ranged from topics of gender and health at the Mexico-US border to a comparative analysis of gender and work at the eastern and western borders of Hungary, to papers in which gender content was incorporated, for example in daily life in diverse border regions to immigrant identities and representations in novels and portrayals in contemporary films. Elena Dell’Agnese (University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy) was one of the main conference organizers and active in recruiting gender papers.
A the recent German geography meetings (Geographentag) in Vienna,paper sessions were held on an array of themes, among them gendered migrations, tensions in development studies, issues related to children and youth and the city, changing methodologies. Alternative approaches – geography of differences (gender studies), geography of identities (queer studies) and theoretical (post-structuralist) versus empirical studies were discussed in relation to their suitability for various topics/questions.
Diane Richardson, Nina Laurie,and Janet Townsend (University of Newcasstle, UK) and Mira Poudel (University of Newcastle and Internal Organization of Migration) are engaged in a new research project on post-trafficking livelihoods in Nepal (2010-12) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.. The project is a collaborationb with the ngo, Shakti Amuha and the International Organization of Migration to address the opportunities of sexually-trafficked women on their return to Nepal where anti-trafficking advocacy is now highly visible. Simultaneously, pro-democracy movements are opening new debates around citizenship and pro-poor development. For further information contact: , , or
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Congratulations to Judit Timar (HungarianAcademy of Sciences) who received an award from the collaborative program of the BritishAcademy of Scienceand the HungarianAcademy for two months research in London beginning in June, 2009. Under the award she is working on a book (in Hungarian) on critical human geography that will incorporate feminist perspectives. The award made possible work at the British Library and with Professors Claudio Minca and Luiza Bialaslewicz (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Professor Adrian Smith (QueenMaryUniversity) and at the British Library with whom she is also guest editing a special issue of European Urban and Regional Studies.
The University of Bern (Switzerland) has initiated a masters program with a minor in gender studies in September, 2009. The program is directed by geographer Doris Wastl Walter.
A few years ago the Interuniversity Institute on Studies on Women and Gender (iiEDG) was created in Catalonia. It includes researchers from the eight public universities of the Catalan system and is the first in Spain with this interuniversity character. One of the major obejctives has been to organize a Master on Women, Gender and Citizenship which began in September 2007 with staff participation from the eight universities. This collaboration is unusual in Spain, but the program has been very succesful in the number of students and its academic results.The Gender Group in Geography, Autonomous University of Barcelona is actively involved in a course titled “Women and Spaces: Rural and Urban Worlds.”
Katherine Gibson (who also writes collaboratively under the name J.K. Gibson-Graham) has been appointed Professorial Fellow in the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. Kathy was previously Professor of Human Geography in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at AustralianNationalUniversity.
Isabel Dyck (QueenMaryUniversity, London) has received a grant from the Leverhulme Trust-funded for the project “Place, Culture and Film: An Investigation of Migrants’ Health Making Practices.” The study is examining the cultural transformation of health knowledge and practices among minority and international migrant groups in a diverse London Borough using interview and visual methodology.
Nicola Ansell (Brunel University), Elsbeth Robson (University of Malawi & Brunel), and Lorraine van Blerk (Reading University) have just finished project, “Averting new variant famine in southern Africa: Building food secure livelihoods with AIDS-affected young people,” looking at how boys, girls, young men and women in rural Malawi and Lesotho are affected by AIDS with respect to livelihoods and how these impacts might be mitigated.
Gina Porter, Kate Hampshire (Durham University) and Elsbeth Robson (Durham University and University of Malawi) are completing a three year project "Children, transport and mobility in sub-Saharan Africa" which has used a child-centered approach to collect a large qualitative and quantitative evidence base from Ghana, South Africa and Malawi to analyze the travel and mobility issues facing boys and girls in a range of geographical locales. Analysis by gender is a key component of both studies which received support from the UK Economic and Social Research Council and Department of International Development.
The Second International Conference on Geographies of Children, Youth and Families,held at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), July 16-18, 2009. was organized by the University’s the Gender and Geography Groupwith over 70 participants representing 17 nationalities. The Conference theme “Diverse childhoods in international contexts:gender and other social and cultural differences” addressed such issues as children’s mobility and migrations; family, housing and daily life; socio-spatial networks; emotional geographies, health and environment,, public policies; justice amd law. Keynote speakers were Cindi Katz (USA), Lia Karsten (The Netherlands) and Louise Holt (UK). The diversity of disciplines of the participants enhanced a rich dialogue between feminist and other scholars and researchers of geographies of children, youth and families giving rise to an important usage of the concept of gender. Further information is available from or .
Congratulations to Susan Smith and Rachel Pain whose edited book, Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008) won the 2009 Julian Minghi Outstanding Research Award of the Political Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. A review symposium with contributions by FionaJeffries,Jennifer Hyndman, and Hille Koskela and a response by the editors is published in Gender, Place and Culture 16(4) 2009.
Karen Falconer Al-Hindi has been awarded a grant from the University ofNebraska at Omaha University Committee for Research and Creative Activity for her project, “’My child has made me that father’: Masculinity, geography, and care for children with autism.”
ANNOUNCING NEW JOURNALS
We are pleased to announce the launching of the Latin American Journal of Geographyand Gender which has as its mission the publication of scientific articles on geography, gender and sexualities focusing specifically on theoretical and methodological perspectives. It promotes the academic debate with those professionals who are actively involved in the area and reaches out to all regions of Latin America and other regions of the world, via electronic means. It is a bi-annual journal with composed of sections of articles and reviews. The journal will publish in Portuguese, Spanish and English and has an international editorial board. Further information may be accessed at
A new bilingual journal Justice spatiale/Spatial Justice is now available online at with its first issue on 'Space and Justice'.Forthcoming issues will be in 'Spatial Justice and Environment' and 'Gender, Sexual Identities and Spatial Justice'. The CFPs for these can be downloaded from the website (under construction). The journal works solely on a voluntary basis and currently can only deal with translations into English and French for publication on the website. Submissions in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkishwill be considered (the language skills of those currently on the board). Please submit in these languages if you are, in case of acceptance, willing or able to provide us with a final version of the article in English or French.
SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUES
Nick Blomley and Fran Klodawsky are guest editors of a themed issue of Urban Geography, 30 (6), 2009 on "Homelessness, Rights and Space."
The latest issue of the electronic Pelican Journal of Sustainable Development features a section (part 7) focusing on gender issues ( ).
Journal of Geography in Higher Education 33(3), September 2009 features a theme symposium on “Gender Interventions in Research, Teaching, and Practice. See below (chapters and articles) for the detailed contents.
NEW BOOKS
Bauder, Harald and Salvatore Engel Di-Mauro (eds). 2008. Critical Geographies: A Collection of Readings. Kelowna (British Columbia) Praxis (e) press. (This collection includes reprints of several pieces in feminist geography.)
Benhabib, Selya (ed.)2009. Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, Gender. New York: New YorkUniversity Press.
Binswanger, Christa, Margaret Bridges, Brigitte Schlegg, and Doris Wastl-Walter. 2009.Gender Scripts: Widerspenstige Aneignungen von Geschlechtnormen. Campus Verlag.
Borghi, Rachele and Antonella Rondinone (eds) 2009. Geographie e Genere. Milan. Unicopli.
Briones, Heah. 2009. Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency and Rights Are Not Enough.Aldershot: Ashgate.
Chowdry, Prem (ed.) 2009. Gender Discrimination in Land Owenership. New Delhi: Sage.
Erei, Umit. 2009. Migrant Women Transforming Citizenship. Life Stories from Britain and Germany.Aldershot: Ashgate.
Johnston, Lynda and Robyn Longhurst.. 2009. Space, Place, and Sex: Geographies of Sexualities. LanhamMD.: Rowman and Littlefield.
Klinger, Cornelia, y, Andrea Maihofer undBirgit Sauer Politik derGeschlechterverhältnisseBand 40. Campus-Verlag.
Letherby, Gayle. and Gillian Reynolds. (eds) 2009. Gendered Journey: Mobile Emotions.Aldershot: Ashgate.
McDowell, Linda.2009. Working Bodies: Interactive Service Employment and Workplace Identities. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Rao, Mitya. 2009. ‘Good Women Do Not Inherit Land’: Policies of and Gender in India. New Delhi: Orient Longman.
Schier, Michaela, KarinJurczyk, Peggy Szymenderski, Andreas Lange, and G. Günter
Voss..2009. Entgrenzte Arbeit: entgrenzte Familie. Grenzmanagement im Alltag als neue Herausforderung. Forschung. Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Bd. 100, Berlin: Sigma
Schurr, Carolin (2009): Andean Rural Local Governments in-betweenPowerscapes. Eichstaett: Mesa Redonda.
Seager, Joni. 2008. The Atlas of Women in the World. (4th edition, completely revised and updated). NY: Penguin; London:Earthscan; Paris: Autremont.
Silva, Joseli Maria (ed.). 2009. Geografias subversivas, discursos sobre espaço, gênero e sexualidades.(available from
Wastl-Walter, Doris. 2009. Gender Geographien: Geschlecht und Raum als sociale Konstruktionen. Stuttgart: Steiner-Verlag.
NEW ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
Ahlers, Rhodante and Margaret Zwarteveen. 2009. “The water questions in feminism: water control and gender inequities in a neo-liberal era. Gender, Place and Culture 16(4): 409-26.
Angeles, Leonora C. andKathryn Hill. 2009. “The gender dimension of the agrarian transition: women, men and livelihood diversification in two peri-urban farming communities in the Philippines.” Gender, Place and Culture 16(4): 609-29.
Ansell, Nicola, L. van Blerk, E. Robson, F. Hajdu, and L.Chipeta, forthcoming 2009 'The new variant famine hypothesis: moving beyond the household to explain links between AIDS and food insecurity in southern Africa' Progress in Development Studies 9 (3):
Anugwom, Edlyne Ezebongaya and Kenechukwu N. Anugwom. 2009. “The other side of civil society: Women and rhe Niger Delata environmental struggle.” Geojournal 74(4):333-46.
Arapoglou, Vassilis P. and John Sayas. 2009. “New facets of urban segregation in southern Europe: Gender, migration, and social class in Athens.” European Urban and Regional Studies 16(4): 245-36.
Bennett, Katy. 2009. “Challenging emotions.” Area 41(3): 244-51.
Bhimji, Fazila. 2009. “Identities and agency in religious spheres: a study of British Muslim women's experience” Gender, Place and Culture 16(4): 365 – 380